Who will buy the idea of non-fungible token (NFT) marketing? Understanding consumers’ psychological tendencies and value perceptions of branded NFTs

AbstractInnovative companies are experimenting with branded NFTs as part of their marketing strategies to engage consumers who are seeking exclusive content. Young consumers tend to be early adopters of blockchain technologies and are seeking branded NFTs for their own purposes. Using a U.S. sample of Gen-Z and Millennials (n = 1,053), we examined the values (i.e. informative, entertainment, unique, expressive values) consumers are seeking in the acquisition and display of branded NFTs and explored how their tendencies toward status consumption, perceived financial constraint, and dispositional innovativeness influenced their willingness to engage in brand WOM. The analyses confirmed the proposed model and revealed that value perceptions (unique, entertainment, and expressive values) helped elicit an individual’s sense of status consumption and dispositional innovativeness. This relationship resulted in positive brand WOM. For the financially constrained, the unique value offered by NFTs was important for positive WOM to manifest. This research helps both marketers and policymakers better understand consumers’ psychological responses to branded NFTs.Keywords: Non-fungible token marketingstatus consumptiondispositional innovativenessfinancial constraintsvalue perceptionbrand WOM Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementDue to the ethical nature of the research, supporting data is not available.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Southern Methodist University under the Meadows Faculty Development Grant.Notes on contributorsQuan XieQuan Xie (Ph.D., Ohio University) is an Assistant Professor of Advertising at the Temerlin Advertising Institute in Southern Methodist University. Her research focuses on the advertising effects in the interrelated contexts of digital technologies and culture. From this perspective, she investigates the mechanisms through which advertising affects information processing, consumer behavior, and brand building at the intersection of digital media and culture. Her research topics focus on content marketing, digital advertising, and social media advertising. Her research has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Journal of Product & Brand Management, and Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, among others.Sidharth MuralidharanSidharth Muralidharan (Ph.D., The University of Southern Mississippi) is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Temerlin Advertising Institute in Southern Methodist University. He formerly worked as a junior account executive for Zehnder Communications, New Orleans. His primary research interests lie in pro-social marketing, specifically, advertising’s impact on mitigating social and environmental issues in India and abroad, while secondary research interests include social media and online advertising. His work has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Consumer Studies, and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, among others.Steven M. EdwardsSteven M. Edwards (Ph.D., UT Austin) is a recognized scholar on persuasive communication in new media environments and teaches classes on analytics, social media marketing, consumer engagement, and brand loyalty using gamification. His research explores feelings of intrusiveness and reactions of consumers to 3D interactive experiences online. His research has appeared in numerous journals and books. He is past editor of the Journal of Interactive Advertising, Vice-President of the American Academy of Advertising, and serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the premier journals in the field. Other research explores product placements, motivations for using the Internet, and the impact of negative information on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsers.